


Departure

by ImpOfPerversity



Series: Devastation-verse [3]
Category: Baroque Cycle - Neal Stephenson, Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: 1 Sentence Fiction, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-07-29
Updated: 2004-07-29
Packaged: 2018-10-21 06:52:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10679994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImpOfPerversity/pseuds/ImpOfPerversity





	Departure

The _Black Pearl_ slipped past Tilbury Fort before moonrise, all hands to the long sweeps, creeping like a mayfly down the dark Thames as the ebbing tide carried apple-cores, playbills, sewage, and rat-corpses from London Town towards the distant, compelling sea; Captain Jack Sparrow stood at the helm, casting dark looks up at the oblivious sentries on the ramparts, and occasionally calling into question — in a low, hissing murmur — the ancestry, family connections, sexual proclivities or general lackwittedness of any oarsman whose efforts to disengage his oar from the debris were noisier than, say, the splash a water-rat or a small, thieving boy might make whilst about the night's business; Jack Sparrow's eye was on the dim lamps that marked the channel, and the lanterns of merchant ships at anchor in Tilbury Reach, and his hand was on the wheel (a new-fangled invention, but he blessed the Dutchman who'd built it, for it made the work of navigation, not to mention the sheer drudgery of steering, much easier in such straitened waters), but his mind, or at least a fraction of it — for never let it be said that Jack Sparrow was incapable of doing two things at once — was on Jack Shaftoe, the latest and most volatile member of the _Black Pearl_ 's crew: except that he wasn't truly crew at all, in any sense of the word save the mind-numbingly literal business of feeding and watering the ship's company, when a single new man, on board for the duration of the voyage home, might mean the whole crew on famine rations for those last few sun-scorched days before the scent of green things came to them on the western wind; and a finer scent by far it was than the reek of the Thames foreshore at low tide, or the smell of cooking-fires from the fort, or the stench of the gibbetted bodies on Tilbury Dock, some of whom Jack thought he might have known; but enough of such morbid thoughts, now, for they were beyond the range of the great guns, and the tide was gaining force and speed as the river broadened, and the men — keen to be out at sea again, and away from all this unwelcoming, muddy and confining land (so much more of it than of any isle of the warm, jewel-clear Caribbean) and its unfriendly natives — were still pulling on the oars, heaving the dear _Pearl_ towards her true element, and singing (more or less tunefully) a bawdy Spanish song, or at least a song that had started off with Spanish words, though now at least half of it had been translated into other tongues; Jack Sparrow had known that song once, and he was quite certain that the subject matter had been pretty Spanish girls, and not dashing buccaneers of indeterminate gender but even greater prettiness; still, he cocked his hat and beamed down at his crew, chusing to take the shanty as a compliment; not that it would help his case with Mr Shaftoe, who no doubt already thought himself, at best, on a ship of fools, and had encountered the Captain's dashing buccaneer behaviour at first — well, perhaps not first _hand_ , but anyway at extremely close quarters: and hadn't, Jack Sparrow thought bracingly to himself, made any complaint about it at the time, apart from some trifling remarks that had to do with cooling stickiness, the spasmodic tensing of tired muscles, and the devastation of the surrounding suburbs, so that it was beyond Jack to offer any explanation (even to himself) as to why Mr Jack Shaftoe, lately of Southwark and most recently recruited to the most gloriously fearsome pirate ship for a thousand miles in any direction (never mind those French amateurs, for what was the challenge in piracy and smuggling in the English Channel, where a man sailing from Dunkirk had scarcely time to down a pint of rum before knocking into Kent?) had made himself so very scarce that Jack Sparrow'd had to keep checking that Shaftoe hadn't run for it while the _Black Pearl_ was still in familiar waters; but Shaftoe, having woken (rather dazed) while the _Pearl_ 's Captain was negotiating Greenwich Reach, had approached the Captain at the helm — Jack Sparrow didn't run a tightly-governed naval ship, not like some who called themselves pirates, but some things were sacred, and he (that is, the Captain) was one of them — and delivered a few pithy, and none too discreet, comments on the manner and execution of his recruitment (drunken, half out of his mind with sexual exhaustion and heartily dosed with rum; brought aboard blindfolded, in case, like a horse, he should bolt), had declined Jack Sparrow's remarkably polite and magnanimous offer to make it all up to him just as soon as his beloved ship had negotiated the twisty bits and the mudlarkz riddled banks, and had then gone off to lurk around the deck, continually eyeing (or eyeing up?) Jack Sparrow, getting in the way of the smooth sailing of the vessel, striking up conversations with the crew, and generally not being the ideal guest that Jack Sparrow had envisaged; perhaps the whole abduction business _had_ been a little abrupt, but it had seemed like a splendid idea at the time, and a day's acquaintance with the charming Mr Shaftoe had convinced him that the man had nothing of significance to keep him in London; and even, in the nebulous but well-armed party of assorted Irish ruffians, relatives and cohorts of his boys' deceased mother, a number of excellent reasons to hasten his departure; besides which, Jack Shaftoe had been excellent company while the two of them had hung around various Southwark taverns, drinking and story-telling and — in Jack Sparrow's case — recounting his autobiography, for a small fee, to a clerk who'd promised to write it down and have it published, the proceeds to be sent to Jack's elderly aunt in Noss Mayo; Shaftoe had not only held his own in their conversations, which made a refreshing change for anyone used to what passed for intelligent discourse aboard the _Black Pearl_ , but he had more than held his own (Jack swallowed at this image, and looked around for Shaftoe once more without even thinking about it) once they'd retreated to Jack's rented room and he'd persuaded Mr Shaftoe — with the help of an extended practical demonstration — that he, Captain Jack Sparrow, held the key, as it were, to fit Jack Shaftoe's lock; though he'd never admit it, he hadn't been absolutely, _positively_ sure that he could bring off any man who'd suffered (here Jack winced, and cursed his overly vivid imagination) such an appalling physiological affront; but nothing ventured, nothing gained, and the results had turned out to be entirely worthwhile for both parties concerned; Jack Shaftoe's unpracticed, wickedly inventive hand on Sparrow's cock — not as though he'd never had one of his own, after all — had been enough to make Jack spend almost embarrassingly quickly, and he'd been able to repay the favour with devastating effect; so _why_ was Jack Shaftoe (who could have jumped ship as soon as he woke) still aboard, and playing so damned coy?


End file.
